Myntra hires former Amazon exec Jeyandran Venugopal as new CTO

In a bid to accelerate its pace of growth, online fashion retailer Myntra has appointed former Amazon executive Jeyandran Venugopal as its new chief technology officer.

Jeyandran Venugopal is replacing Ajit Narayanan, who left the company within six months of joining. Before Ajit Narayanan took over the role in November last year, Shamik Sharma was Myntra’s chief technology officer. Now Venugopal happens to be the company’s third CTO in less than a year.

Ananth Narayanan, CEO of Myntra said, “Jeyandran joins us at a crucial phase when Myntra is treading firmly on its path to profitability. We have always laid emphasis on having a strong leadership, and his appointment brings that to the fore. Jeyandran has to his credit, years of experience in the field of technology, with a proven track record that further reinforces our commitment to provide unmatched service to our customers.”

Before joining Myntra as CTO, Venugopal was working at his own startup called Eclinic247, which helps consumers find and consult doctors online. He is also one of the founding members of Amazon’s first offshore development centre in India that was set up in Bangalore in 2004. He had briefly worked at Snapdeal as a technology advisor and as a senior engineering leader at Yahoo.

Recently, Myntra hired five senior engineers, including an architect, from companies such as Ola and Intuit, to strengthen its core technology team. Myntra has appointed Mohan Sunkara of Intuit as vice-president and selected architect Arun Samudrala as principal architect. The company has also hired a former senior engineer at Ola, Sriram Iyer as vice-president of engineering.

The appointments come at a time when Myntra is betting big on technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve and further personalise the shopping experience for consumers. The company is also targeting high profitability for fiscal 2018.